Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To tie or bind up; knot.
  • Pertaining to Gordius, the first king of Phrygia
  • In heraldry, a name sometimes given to the Navarre knot, or the figure of interlinked chains which forms the bearing of the kings of Navarre.
  • noun [lowercase] A complication; a Gordian knot.
  • noun [⟨ Gordius + -an.] A hairworm; one of the Gordiidæ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the Gordiacea.
  • adjective Pertaining to Gordius, king of Phrygia, or to a knot tied by him; hence, intricate; complicated; inextricable.
  • adjective an intricate knot tied by Gordius in the thong which connected the pole of the chariot with the yoke. An oracle having declared that he who should untie it should be master of Asia, Alexander the Great averted the ill omen of his inability to loosen it by cutting it with his sword. Hence, a Gordian knot is an inextricable difficulty; and to cut the Gordian knot is to remove a difficulty by bold and energetic measures.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Pertaining to the Gordiacea.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Alternative form of Gordian.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective extremely intricate; usually in phrase `Gordian knot'

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